Sony's Venom solo movie is making serious bank at the box office, and is now reportedly on track to surpass both Justice League and Logan financially. While the success of Venom doesn't necessarily ensure that the studio's planned cinematic universe of Spider-Man side characters will end up working out - after all, Man of Steel kicked off the eternally divisive DCEU with a huge $668 million worldwide haul - it's certainly an encouraging sign that films starring such normally supporting Marvel characters can indeed work.

Like many of the films in the aforementioned DCEU though, Venom wasn't bolstered to its financial success by critical praise. In fact, most critics ravaged Venom, offering up zero love for arguably Spider-Man's greatest nemesis. Of course, Venom's connection to Spider-Man wouldn't be apparent to anyone watching director Ruben Fleischer's film without prior knowledge of the two characters' backstories. Spidey's connection to Venom's origin story was completely excised, although Fleischer still believes that an encounter between Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock and Tom Holland's Peter Parker will happen eventually.

Related: Venom’s Biggest Unanswered Questions

Currently, Sony's Venom movie sits on a pile of $377.4 million worldwide, making it the 16th highest-grossing movie of 2018 so far. However, a new report by CBM suggests that Venom is destined for heights much greater than it's already reached. While CBM doesn't specify how they're determining the numbers in their report - or what other source they might be getting them from - the site says that Venom is likely to surpass $550 million worldwide, especially after the film opens in China on November 9. Passing $600 million is also reportedly an attainable goal as well, leading the film to eventually pass both Logan's $619 million worldwide haul, and Justice League's $657 million worldwide total.

Justice League Superman

Even if the above projections prove a bit overly optimistic, Venom's financial success is made all the more impressive by its "small" (by superhero movie standards) budget. Venom's production budget was only around $100 million, much smaller than the budget of any of the five Spider-Man films produced by Sony since Sam Raimi's first outing starring Tobey Maguire in 2002. By contrast, Warner Bros. never released official budget figures for Justice League, but some reports have estimated massive numbers, even somewhere around $300 million. Plus, Venom will have accomplished its final earnings without the help of a marquee superhero like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, or even Wolverine in the film.

Speaking of Wolverine though, while Venom seems poised to surpass Logan's box office total, all things considered, the large haul of James Mangold's film is more impressive. For one, Logan was rated-R, something Venom's producers refused to do. Logan also cost even less than Venom to make. Had Sony gone with an R-rating for Venom - as many fans wished they would have - one wonders if it would have performed worse than Logan. To be fair though, recent hits like IT and Deadpool prove that there's no real ceiling on how much money an R-rated film can make, provided its studio is willing to take a leap of faith.

More: Venom 2 Will Not Be Rated-R Either, According to Avi Arad

Source: CBM